1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for restricting A/V listening and viewing using parental levels.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a parental lock function for blocking children or juveniles from listening and viewing adult programs, etc. without permission is being applied to various devices, such as a set top box, etc.
A broadcast receiver having a parental lock function, as illustrated in FIG. 1, includes an A/V signal processor 10, a parental level detecting unit 11, a microprocessor 12, a memory 13, etc.
The memory 13 stores and manages user setting parental level information User_Set_Parental_Level set by a user. The parental level detecting unit 11 detects parental level information included in specific lines of video signals among broadcast signals received through the A/V signal processor 10.
For example, as illustrated in FIG. 2, a vertical blank period of a 21-th video line in a 2ND field of a NTSC broadcast signal transmits data 1 and data 2, each data having 2 bytes, as parental level information for parental lock. The parental level information can be called an arbitrary different name, such as parental lock information, etc.
Also, as illustrated in FIG. 3, the parental level information includes ratings on broadcast programs classified on the basis of film ratings, violent levels, sexual levels, and advisory levels of the classification board within the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The parental level detecting unit 111 detects the parental level information included and transmitted in a video line as described above and outputs the parental level information to the microprocessor 12.
The microprocessor 12 compares the parental level detected by the parental level detecting unit 11 with a user setting parental level stored in the memory 13, and determines whether or not to output video and audio of the currently received broadcast program according to the comparison result.
For example, as illustrated in FIG. 4, if the detected parental level is an adult level higher than the user setting parental level, the microprocessor 12 controls the A/V signal processor 10 so that the video and audio of the received broadcast program are not output, and displays a black screen in a mute state.
Meanwhile, if the parental level detected by the parental level detecting unit 11 is lower than the user setting parental level, for example, if the parental level is not the adult level, the microprocessor 12 controls the A/V signal processor 10 so that the video and audio of the received broadcast program are normally output.
Accordingly, it is possible to block video and audio containing inappropriate content for children or juveniles from being output without permission. However, in this case, users should wait for nothing while a black screen is displayed in a mute state.